Patch 5.4.2 - Raid Browser
Just a quick update to yesterday's post about the Raid Browser. It seems like it isn't completely cross-realm, but instead cross realm for each datacenter (in the US), with the Phoenix and Los Angeles datacenters being combined. You can see which of the three groups you are in on this WoWPedia page.

People also appear to be having trouble finding the Raid Browser. There are four ways to find it, one is the "Other Raids" button on the Raid panel, you can also type "/rb", you can also assign a key bind in the key bind settings, or you can use the button on the PvE finder frame that is added by the LFRAdvanced addon.

Raid Browser - Warlords of Draenor

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The new Group Finder tool in WoD (6.0) will completely replace the Raid Browser, and you will also be able to find it in a much more noticeable location.

We’re focusing our efforts in polishing the Group Finder in order to make it as good as it can be, maximizing its potential from the very start.
This is something we’ve learnt from the past, if the tool isn’t good enough from the very start or it’s not very accessible, it might lose its momentum, and once that happens it’s very hard to “jumpstart” it again.

It’s a tool that depends on player numbers for its own success, we want you to see other players using it every time you go there, and the risk is if you don’t, you might never go there again, and eventually that behaviour tends to spread out.

We also don’t have any plans to change the current Raid Browser until it gets replaced by the new tool.

The Group Finder will be a big improvement both in terms of functionality and visibility; we definitely want players to know where to find the tool in very intuitive manner, and hopefully trade chat spam will become a thing of the past. (at least in it comes to forming groups…)

Heroic Dungeon Difficulty in Warlords of Draenor
You can take part in some ongoing discussion on our forums in this thread.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I’d like to start out by saying that we’re completely aware of the demand from the community for dungeons at a very high difficulty level.

As you know, WoD will (re)introduce the normal and heroic difficulties for 5man's at max level, which is already a very nice change in my opinion.

There are players who have been playing WoW for a very long time, they’re extremely skilled and will only be satisfied with the highest level of difficulty that we throw at them, that’s “perfect entertainment” for this type of players.

We also know that not everyone can raid in very high difficulty environments due to its big time commitment. Sometimes life changes, and suddenly instead of 3-4 hours every 2 days, some of these players will only have 1 or 2 hours, and that makes shorter/smaller instances with the same difficulty level as “mythic” an extremely appealing concept.

Challenge modes will probably be interesting for some of these players, but we also know that when people talk about TBC heroic 5man difficulty levels, they’re not talking about mindless zerg/rush timed runs. They’re talking about planning, strategy, CC, improvisation, randomness and sheer insane mobs/bosses power, but the “timed” part is still an important concept in game design to keep everyone on their toes.

We know all that, and we’re doing our very best to provide the most diverse content we can for the next expansion.

Your feedback can change a lot of things, just keep providing it and we’ll be sure to recognize your needs, devs are very interested in high quality feedback, and it can go a long way in changing some priorities during the development of WoD.

Having said that, the current planned difficulty scheme for 5mans at max level is Normal, Heroic and Challenge mode. Right off the bat, we can clearly say that WoD heroics will be much harder than MoP heroics.

Now, we’re not actually planning in making them as hard as the hardest heroics of all time, like the hardest from TBC, or GB and Stonecore from Cata, but nothing is set in stone yet, we’re still thinking about what will be the right difficulty level for anything WoD, and your continued feedback will definitely help us find that elusive sweet spot for a perfect tiered difficulty system.

We also think that we can rework a little bit the whole concept of challenge modes, right now people tend to think about them as purely timed runs, but they can be so much more than that.

I mean, the “timed part” doesn’t necessarily have to imply disregard for control and strategy; hopefully, we’ll be able to make challenge modes much more compelling to the highest skilled players out there, especially those that can’t raid but want to experience equivalent difficulty content to mythic raids in a 5man environment.

If you have any particular views on the subject, I’d love to hear what would be the “perfect challenge mode” for you, specifically in regards to reward structure and gameplay philosophy concepts.

I'm sorry but Cata heroics weren't really hard for organized groups.
You’re right, they weren't as hard as let's say, Shattered Halls HC. Our current goal is to make WoD heroics similar to the difficulty level you had in Vortex Pinnacle heroic for example.

To be honest, I loved Stonecore, it was fun trying to make a clean run where no one would do any mistakes, it wasn’t super hard, but I’d say most bosses had very unforgiving mechanics. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course, but bosses like Ozruk for example, need to have better visual cues when they have one-shot mechanics.

Good design needs to be more intuitive, it’s not really that fun to read through the full dungeon journal and memorize everything before fighting any boss, it’s much cooler when something is so well implemented that even if it’s completely unexpected you can still try to “guess” what it does and adapt, react to it on-the-spot, just like you would do with anything unexpected that happens in real life.

Resolved an issue where Battle Pets were incorrectly receiving the Spirit Bond talent.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Siege of Orgrimmar

Paragons of the Klaxxi

Hisek the Swarmkeeper will no longer hit players with Fire if the channel effect of Aim is broken.

Korven the Prime will now always apply Vicious Assault's bleed effect to the target of his Shield Bash, and will pull the tank towards them during Vicious Assault if they're over 12 yards away.

Skeer the Bloodseeker will now only pull the tank towards them if they're over 13 yards away (up from 12 yards away).

Throne of Thunder

Durumu the Forgotten

Resolved an issue where a cone of light would not target another player if the targeted Holy Priest dies with Spirit of Redemption.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Arenas

Arena matches should correctly have a maximum duration of 20 minutes again.

Hunter aspects and Trap Launcher effect should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.

Mage armor buffs should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.

Paladin seals should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.

Priest's Inner Fire, and Inner Will should no longer be removed at the start of an arena match.

Connected Realms Update

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, December 16th during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

Andorhal and Scilla/Ursin

Crushridge and Anub'arak/Chromaggus/Garithos/Nathrezim/Smolderthorn

Icecrown and Malygos

Quel'dorei and Sen'jin

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Monday, December 23rd during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

Anetheron and Magtherdion/Ysondre

Darrowmere and Windrunner

Demonsoul and Coilfang, Dark Iron, and Dalvengyr

Draka and Suramar

Velen and Eonar

We will be connecting the realms listed below on Friday, January 3rd during a scheduled maintenance beginning at 6 a.m. PST through approximately 11:00 a.m. PST. Once maintenance is finished, these realm connections will be complete.

Akama and Dragonmaw

Executus and Kalecgos

Galakrond and Blackhand

Shandris and Bronzebeard

The Forgotten Coast and Balnazzar, Gorgonash and Warsong

Undermine and Anvilmar

Please note that as a part of the connection process realm times may change to match each other. Plans for these connections may change at any time, but we’ll provide additional updates on specific dates for future connections as we can. *Please note this list does not encompass all potential future connections. Please check back for further updates.

Connected Realms Update

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hey all, now that patch 5.4.2 is live we will be continuing with our realm connections, beginning next week. Below you will find the latest realms we hope to connect:

English Realms

(PvP) Aggra (Portuguese) and Grim Batol (English)

(PvP) Lightning’s Blade and Karazhan

French Realms

(PvP) Arathi and Naxxramas/Temple Noir

(PvP) Ner’zhul and Garona

Spanish Realms

(PvE) Minahonda and Exodar

German Realms

(RP PvP) Das Syndikat and Die Arguswacht

Free Character Migrations (FCM) 11/12

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The following Free Character Migrations are scheduled to be available until December 17, 2013:

Please note: FCMs are opened based on realm population tracking and analysis, not by request. If you’re looking for a specific migration (from realm A to realm B), you should in most cases use the Character Transfer service.

Guild Transfer: Although Free Guild Master Realm Transfers are not possible at this time, the Free Character Migration will allow you to retain your guild membership and reputation, provided that the guild master completes a Guild Master Realm Transfer first and the faction remains the same as that of the source realm.

Please note that the FCM service can be closed at any point in time.

Dismiss Pet Changes

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As a followup: we've got a hotfix in the works to lower Revive Pet's casting time to 2 seconds. Our goal was to remove the awkward gameplay of dismissing/swapping pets to bypass cooldowns and debuffs, not to make it harder for Hunters to have a pet active. With Revive at 2 seconds, you should have a much easier time getting your pet back on its feet.

We're also investigating the reports of Revive Pet being interruptible through Deterrence.

Hearthstone Beta Patch 4217
Hearthstone had their first patch in some time this week, with some nice changes, like being able to abandon a daily quest, the new ranking system, and some amusing new cards.

I would be okay with easy 5 man heroics. There are so many channels of more difficult content. However it barely affects me, since I will run them with my guildies for a week and then never look at them again once we start raiding. So my opinion may be a bit unnecessary. lol

I'd actually love a return of challenging Heroics. Nothing is more satisfactory than knowing you're in a hostile environment that will brutally punish your mistakes but handling things without a hitch, or when shit hits the fan but you react and manage to get to grips with the situation before you wipe, that's when you know that you're good, when you know your team is good. It's like heroic raids but on a smaller scale.

I would say provide plenty of dungeons, say ten, and have the first on par with MoP Heroics and scale them up so that the last few are Grim Batol/Stonecore... Maybe even Shattered Halls or Shadow Labrynth. Honestly GB wasn't hard even in PuGs, as a DK tank at the time I'd just mark what needed to be CCd, deathgrip the first target to die, silence the casters to bring them closer, and burn everything down.

We need challenging heroics to teach people the basics, take a run through any LFR or RBG and watch people completely fail to appreciate crowd control, movement, positioning, cooldown useage or even their basic abilities.

The WoW community is weird sometimes. I personally loved Heroic Dungeons in TBC mostly because I didn't raid often and the challenge was fun, although often frustrating when pugging. I knew a lot of people who hated them though.

Wotlk introduced the easy mode heroics and a lot loved it, but some complained they were too easy and loot fests. Blizz tried to listen to the people who wanted more of a challenge and Cata heroics went back (kind of) to the TBC model and the majority cried it was too hard. So they nerf them, later MoP comes out and people complain about how easy they are again and people complain its too easy once again.

So here we are, people claiming they want hard heroics, and if Blizz listens, again, we will have to deal with people yet again crying about how hard it is until it gets nerfed.

Honestly GB wasn't hard even in PuGs, as a DK tank at the time I'd just mark what needed to be CCd, deathgrip the first target to die, silence the casters to bring them closer, and burn everything down.

That's pretty much "all" you had to do in TBC heroics to make them not-hard. Well, sans deathgrip as it didn't exist then. From my experience the Cata heroics, pre nerf at least, were as hard as / harder than the majority of TBC heroics. Only Shattered Halls really stood out as being hard, but if you CC what needed to be CCed it wasn't that taxing.

The difficulty needs to be tuned right though. MoP and Wrath heroics were too easy, Cata heroics were too hard for pugs.

and have the first on par with MoP Heroics and scale them up so that the last few are Grim Batol/Stonecore... Maybe even Shattered Halls or Shadow Labrynth.

The problem with that is some dungeons would be hugely unpopular once the grind sets in. You'd have players leaving as soon as they appear in one of the "harder" instances.

- - - Updated - - -

Wotlk introduced the easy mode heroics and a lot loved it, but some complained they were too easy and loot fests. Blizz tried to listen to the people who wanted more of a challenge and Cata heroics went back (kind of) to the TBC model and the majority cried it was too hard. So they nerf them, later MoP comes out and people complain about how easy they are again and people complain its too easy once again.

It's not that weird. The playerbase is so large in WoW (even after sub losses) that frankly whatever Blizz do it will upset a fair number of players. And truthfully, there isn't a right or wrong answer, only opinions. It's why Blizzard can't listen to every piece of "advice" given by every noob / leet.

Hard Heroics wouldn't be an issue if they remember to ease people into them. Cataclysm Heroic weren't hard for anyone who was still aware of TBC Heroics or for anyone who looks up fights and strategies (or can adapt quickly) beforehand. However, despite the fact these dunngeons weren't as hard as TBC's they were still much more difficulty than WotLK's and Blizzard did not prepare anyone for the transition from easy to challenging.

Whether you think the Heroics are hard or not isn't the problem here. A lot of people did and were vocal about their opinions, and Blizzard should have allowed these people to adapt gradually, rather than hit a wall they weren't expecting. This was the same problem that the Inferno difficulty hard in Diablo 3. It wasn't that it was hard, it was that it was much harder than previous content and the difficulty simply wasn't expected.

Aside from this, I don't care either way. One thing I've learned to understand and adapt to is the idea that MMO's become much easier as time goes on, not the other way around. World of Warcraft has been a yardstick for MMO's since it's popularity increased over 5 years ago, and because of this many MMO's start "hard" and are simply made easier as time goes on. I've yet to see or play an online game that has gotten harder over time rather than being nerfed and made more "accessible" or easier.

As long as there are alternative venues for gearing yourself up for raiding then I don't mind challenging 5-man content. I stopped playing the game in Cataclysm because I couldn't gear for raiding because all random heroics consisted of people wiping on the first boss and leaving. I was not getting anywhere gear-wise and it was frustrating and exhausting and just not fun.

Now with things like Timeless Isle, players are able to sidestep the 5-man content to a greater extent and get gear that at least gives them a baseline capability for raids. If they keep that in there then I don't mind challenging non-raid content.

Ye harder hc than TBC and Cata at launch way to go, and again I will spend with some random grp 3 hr for clear fk dungeon,maybe is good for ppl who are in guilds and have friends in game but not for me I dont have time for raiding when takes 3-5 hr what abot to clear just one dungeon,they suppose do some kind on switch for hc like quick mode and mythic mode or whatever but for same rewards,is up to you if choose mythic mode over easy mode.I prefer quick mode than wipping over and over.

Vortex Pinnacle was one of the easier Cata Heroics, so I'm cool with that. Nothing really required CC other than the last 2-3 packs at the end (the ones with the 2x healers) and what made that annoying was the grounding field since they were immune to CC while in it. That would be a fine difficulty for heroic dungeons; we don't need super hard heroics because they're going to go from running to gear up to running for easy JP/VP within a month or two, and by then nobody is going to care about them being hard or challenging, just something to get done with so they can start on something else.

I really do hope that they remove the time from CMs or make it so the timer for Gold is more forgiving. The biggest issue I and many others have with CMs right now is that it forces you to cheese it and sneak past as much as possible, which isn't very challenging at all. That sort of stuff should be needed if you are trying to get it done as fast as possible for the leaderboards, but not for a typical "I want Gold" run.

Mythic dungeons

1: Have three dungeon difficulty tiers instead of two, adding Mythic. Yes, it would be as hard as it sounds, and reward appropriately.

2: Scale the difficulty of the Heroic and Mythic dungeons when new raids were released, so that they would remain challenging throughout the expansion

3: Scale up many old content dungeons to cover a gamut of difficulties between and including the regular dungeon difficulty and the current Heroic tier.

Essentially, regular dungeons would be a normal part of progression for new level 100 characters. Heroic dungeons would be where current-tier normal (current flex) and LFR raiders, as well as casuals, picked up some extra gear. Mythic dungeons would offer gear useful for Heroic and even Mythic raiders.

Frankly, something similar to #3 should be done with raids as well. With the new scaling tech, there is no reason that many old raids couldn't be reborn as content to play in that was somewhere between fresh level 100 difficulty and LFR difficulty.

I'd actually love a return of challenging Heroics. Nothing is more satisfactory than knowing you're in a hostile environment that will brutally punish your mistakes but handling things without a hitch, or when shit hits the fan but you react and manage to get to grips with the situation before you wipe, that's when you know that you're good, when you know your team is good. It's like heroic raids but on a smaller scale.

I would say provide plenty of dungeons, say ten, and have the first on par with MoP Heroics and scale them up so that the last few are Grim Batol/Stonecore... Maybe even Shattered Halls or Shadow Labrynth. Honestly GB wasn't hard even in PuGs, as a DK tank at the time I'd just mark what needed to be CCd, deathgrip the first target to die, silence the casters to bring them closer, and burn everything down.

We need challenging heroics to teach people the basics, take a run through any LFR or RBG and watch people completely fail to appreciate crowd control, movement, positioning, cooldown useage or even their basic abilities.

That's pretty much "all" you had to do in TBC heroics to make them not-hard. Well, sans deathgrip as it didn't exist then. From my experience the Cata heroics, pre nerf at least, were as hard as / harder than the majority of TBC heroics. Only Shattered Halls really stood out as being hard, but if you CC what needed to be CCed it wasn't that taxing.

Not the same thing...you could not cc before pull(without aggro) and classes had much less tools for cc/interrupts. As a Warrior I did not had the range silence and the only viable cc was mage sheep in most situations. In cata if you used cc the tank almost did not take any damage and if you did not use cc the tank could still survive with a decent gear and a good healer. In TBC, if you did not cc you were dead. Also aggro was not trivial as it was in cata. DPS and Healers should always watch their aggro and tank had to actually be very good to build good aggro. And if a DPS or healer got aggro they were dead the very next moment.

Originally Posted by Feigr

As long as there are alternative venues for gearing yourself up for raiding then I don't mind challenging 5-man content. I stopped playing the game in Cataclysm because I couldn't gear for raiding because all random heroics consisted of people wiping on the first boss and leaving. I was not getting anywhere gear-wise and it was frustrating and exhausting and just not fun.

Now with things like Timeless Isle, players are able to sidestep the 5-man content to a greater extent and get gear that at least gives them a baseline capability for raids. If they keep that in there then I don't mind challenging non-raid content.

Why you didn't run them with the people you were supposed to raid with once you get that gear? Or the plan was to also raid with randoms? As far as I know LFR was first made much later in cata...

Anyway, content shouldn't designed for random anonymous un-enchanted/ungemmed afkers(no talking for you here, but for the general random wow player). Especially the content with the prefix "heroic"

Last edited by papajohn4; 2013-12-12 at 01:37 PM.

The trick of selling a PvP-MMO is creating the illusion among gankers that they are respectable fighters while protecting them from respectable fights, as their less skilled half would be massacred and quit instead of “HTFU” as they claim.

opening FCM from dead side of full realms - just brilliant now the ratio will be 100% on those with not allience or no horde dead side at all -_-

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by BloodySandwich

Ye harder hc than TBC and Cata at launch way to go, and again I will spend with some random grp 3 hr for clear fk dungeon,maybe is good for ppl who are in guilds and have friends in game but not for me I dont have time for raiding when takes 3-5 hr what abot to clear just one dungeon,they suppose do some kind on switch for hc like quick mode and mythic mode or whatever but for same rewards,is up to you if choose mythic mode over easy mode.I prefer quick mode than wipping over and over.

i understand why u dont see it as a good thing but it is ! it is a brilliant thing and this alone will keep me subbed for sure - when dungeons will be an actual really important part of char progress and a part of guild progress too . when u will prefer to actually run it with capable guildies in guild group rather then with npc unnown randoms ) - now onlything which is left to hope for is that lfr will be gated behind a really full hc dungeon gear requirement (maybe -1,-2) itlv and then it and flex (new normal) will be much better experience for everybody. this is what we missed most this expansion.will the gearing up in those take most players (non raiders) few weeks yes cause why not - lfr will be gated anyway so no need to hurry through it to later whine that they only run same lfr/flex week after week and have nothing to do exept for it. its a good thing and very good thing for game.

also capping jp/vp ? wont be a problem at all since there will be separate lockout for normal/hc/mythic so if anyone raids and really need it - he will be capped from raiding alone.

opening FCM from dead side of full realms - just brilliant now the ratio will be 100% on those with not allience or no horde dead side at all -_-

Perhaps that is their plan and they will then merge two heavily one sided realms afterwards? I'm sure they've thought about things like faction balance before merging realms.

Originally Posted by DETdream

Just enjoy the game folks, they're not making it for you specifically. When you were playing Super Mario Bros. you learned to jump over piranha plants, you didn't complain until they removed the damn thing.

I need some help understanding the new 5.4.2 Raid Browser changes. I've used it this week for Celestials and for Ordos and had no problem finding the interface in the old location. My question is after I've listed my name for the given Raid I've selected does Blizz match-make the raid group or does it take a physical player picking names and hitting the invite button?

When I listed my name I had an invite within minutes which was great but it left me wondering. Both of my raid groups were full 40-man groups so did it take an enthusiastic "raid starter" to hit the invite on 39 other player names?

The problem with heroic dungeons is simply a problem of the target audience. If you want them to be like BC or the harder Cata heroics, then they can´t be available to a LFG tool. If you want them to be semi-endgame content for casual, more or less solo players who pug, then they need to be like MoP or Wotlk heroics.

When you are with a group of friends, or a guild, there is much more communication.. that is a small issue.. but the bigger issue there is much more forgiveness for learning and wipes. Guilds wipe 20 times on a boss... but if you put the same 25 people in LFR with their guildmates, but don´t let them know who they are,they will ragequit after 2 wipes and call their guildmates baddies.